Chapter 13
“…Huh?”
“What, you're just going to leave last night's memories as a daydream? That's hurtful.”
“Huh???”
“Just kidding. We said the one who bailed first yesterday would be the big sister.”
Was that so?
What did I even do yesterday again?
***
“So, that bastard Karnarov assigns a ridiculous amount of homework.”
“That house has always been strict. They even tried to slap a ban on me over one prank.”
“The student affairs office, too. A student should be allowed to run away once in a while, right? And now they're telling us to fix our uniforms.”
“What a tiresome set of rules they live by. Our elders are the same. They tell us not to interfere with humans, even though there's no race more interesting than them.”
“Tell me about it.”
“...Pour it! Drink!!”
“W-wait. If I drink any more...”
“What, you're backing out?”
“Ti-time...! A real timeout!!”
***
I talked some trash about the professors.
This wasn't a big deal.
But I drank under the table a guy with professor-level mana.
“Hehe, you're the first human I've seen who can drink that well, big sis.”
Adrian said with a laugh.
“You keep saying human this, human that. Aren't you human too?”
“Do I look human to you?”
“Even I, with these snake eyes, am human.”
“You're less human and more like an orc or a dwarf...”
“Hmm?”
I think I heard something a little impure.
“Nothing.”
Adrian glanced at the pile of liquor bottles beside her.
“Could you clear this away? It's a bit much to keep in my space.”
“Of course.”
I shoved all of them into my inventory.
There was no recycling center here; if you just cram it into the trash can, it gets taken care of.
But if nothing but liquor bottles started spewing out of the trash can, that'd be awkward, so I'd better take them out myself.
“You'll come again later, right?”
“Of course.”
I'm coming to drink.
And to vent a little.
“Hehe. That's a good answer.”
Ugh, my head.
I smacked my throbbing head a few times.
“Mmm...
“Want to eat this?”
“What is it?”
“Your world's hangover? remedy? thing? I don't know. Back home, we sometimes ate it as a snack, but there's only one left.”
Did I really say that much?
That's why alcohol is dangerous.
In Adrian's hand was something that looked like herbal medicine.
I snatched it up and ate it.
Hmm.
It really tasted like herbal medicine.
I decided to leave for now.
“Before you go, let me give you a present. It'll help you.”
“It's not that necessary.”
“Are you going to stop friends from giving each other gifts? It's fine. It's not what you're thinking.”
What exactly am I thinking?
Adrian thrust a fingernail into her own chest.
Then she jabbed it in.
Bright red blood should have flowed downward, but it spurted out unnaturally and pooled over her fingers.
Before I knew it, it had formed a very small heart.
In fact, that lump of blood was beating on its own.
While I was distracted by it.
“There, it doesn't hurt.”
Adrian flashed right in front of me and shoved it into the eye that bore Dragon Eye.
“Kyaaaaaaagh!!! My eye!!!!”
It stings like hell!!!
As I rolled around on the floor, messages popped up in a flood.
[Dragon Eye (SR) has been upgraded to Dragon Eye (SR+)!]
[Dragon Eye takes in the King's mana!]
[Dragon Eye takes in the King's mark!]
[You have gained the trait [One Feared by Spirits (?)]!]
[Dragon Eye (SR+) is preparing to evolve!]
[The possibility of a new grade has opened up!]
“Ueeek...”
When I finally managed to open my eyes.
Adrian had vanished without a trace.
A voice rang in my head.
[Now you can come whenever you want. Of course, you're always welcome here.]
It was a beautiful voice.
Is there magic like this too?
[I'll usually be asleep, so if you want to call me, use the mana in that eye?]
But I drank so much that I don't exactly want to call you.
My head and stomach are a mess.
...Well, good is good, I guess.
I turned and headed back out.
For some reason, even if I didn't hide, the beasts would start eyeing me warily and run off when they got near.
Because of that, as long as I watched out for the alarm system, I could get out comfortably.
It's the pre-dawn hours now, so if I climb in through the wall, I probably won't get scolded.
But come to think of it, I came here to increase my mana.
I looked down at my still pitiful mana pool...
“Huh?”
It wasn't pitiful at all?
“Why has this tripled?”
My mana had tripled.
***
Hwacheon Tower.
The tallest and most splendid building among the empire's sprawling magic towers.
In the sky above it, a girl with her wings spread wide appeared.
[Air-defense system activated. Tracking and annihilating intruders.]
Adrian's eyes went wide.
“Hm? Something got added since I last saw it.”
“Intruder!! Prepare the anti-air grid!”
“You think you can stop me with toys like these? How hopelessly foolish.”
Monstrous mana poured from Adrian's eyes.
In an instant, Adrian had every anti-air cannon in sight.
Then Adrian reached out and spread a hand wide.
“What do you think would happen if I clenched this hand?”
“How should I know! Fire!!”
A mage-soldier wearing a conical hat and a dashing mustache raised his staff.
He shouted in a booming voice.
There was no doubt he was the one directing this situation.
Adrian looked down at that young mage-soldier.
“Still... nothing's changed. You'd think you'd forgotten after several decades. Though I do prefer it that way. Haa. A little bit of spice...”
“Pathetic! A shower of magic bullets for the intruder—k-hehk!”
Then, with a clatter, a mage in a red uniform dropkicked him.
It was a face Adrian knew as well.
“Hey, idiot! That's not an intruder!”
“H-huh? B-but, Tower Lord. We were ordered to...”
“We decided that only things we can actually stop count as intruders! Get in there, now!”
“No... but it's been so long since we had an intruder... my mission...”
“If the magic tower's air-defense grid blows up, are you going to take responsibility!! Do you know how many tens of thousands of gold we spent on this!! Unless you're going to go get the budget back from the Finance Minister yourself, shut up!!!”
“S-sorry, sir!!”
***
Before long, Adrian was shown to a super-luxurious guest room.
Then a tired-looking man rushed into the room, drenched in cold sweat.
It was the tower lord, Alberich Karnarov.
Real power belonged to his brother, the head of the house, but he had already gone off to Reinhardt.
Though he'd been more or less dumped into the tower lord position, he was fairly satisfied with it.
With skill only around Rank 5 at best, it was a position he could never have earned otherwise.
But for the first time since becoming tower lord, he was cursing his older brother.
“Damn it... where in the world is big brother, and what is he doing...”
The King of Wings.
Just hearing the name made my head throb.
Of course, because of the pact, humans and dragons were limited in how much they could interfere with one another.
But the pact can be worked around.
And besides, the other party's race...
“So... what is your business?”
A dragon coming to the magic tower on a whim meant at the very least that nothing good was coming of it.
That's right. As for anything good...
“Ah, nothing much. I'll sell about three scales.”
...That's not just good, is it?
It was ridiculously good news.
“...What!? You're selling those!?”
Dragon scales.
Getting materials from a dragon is like plucking stars from the sky.
Unless they willingly lower their power, the material simply scatters away and disappears the moment it leaves their body.
Those dragon bastards have insanely huge pride, even at the lower ranks.
They'd never hand over parts of their own bodies as materials for money.
And the one in front of him was the King of Wings.
The grade was a given.
“And turn it all into booze. The best stuff. You have plenty in your treasury, don't you?”
“Huh?”
I'd heard the dragon was something of a light drinker.
But buying that much in one shot?
It was enough to empty out the Karnarov treasury.
In the first place, the dragon in front of him had come because there was nowhere else to get that much liquor in bulk except here or the imperial treasury.
Otherwise, the dragon would have had to raid the dwarves' kingdom.
Three scales would be enough to buy fifty bottles of the finest of the finest, with change left over.
“May I ask... why?”
“I got excited because I made an interesting drinking buddy. If the other side puts out booze I've never even seen before, I can't exactly hold back on my side, either.”
‘Did the dragon make a drinking buddy out of some legendary dwarf or something?’
No, that's an amount even the grandfather of dwarves couldn't get through.
For now, I opened my subspace.
I had exactly fifty bottles of the best liquor left.
“I have fifty bottles of the highest grade, but...”
“Then give me all of them. I don't need change.”
“Yes, sir.”
Alberich packaged up all the liquor and handed it over.
And he received the three scales wrapped in cloth.
Even at a glance, you could tell dragon mana was surging through them.
“Hoo. Another whim, huh.”
The moment he turned away, he flinched and goosebumps rose all over his body.
A call came through the crystal orb.
Karnarov.
That name was displayed.
The only person in House Karnarov allowed to use the Karnarov name publicly.
Ivan G. Karnarov.
“Yeees! Brother. What brings you here?”
[Alberich. Where did you put the liquor I set aside? I suddenly have somewhere to entertain guests, but I can't find it.]
“I sold it all, brother.”
[…?]
“The King of Wings came by earlier and bought everything, so...”
[What?]
***
“I heard before that sometimes someone climbs over the A dorm wall to get in.”
“What? No way. This isn't knight school...”
“No, seriously—they climb up like a monkey, hand over hand. I heard a timid guard fainted after seeing that.”
“Aren't those just upperclassmen? They’re on the lower floors. If it's the second floor, maybe...”
“It was the fifth floor, though?”
“Kyaaaaaaagh!”
“Ugh... noisy... hungry...”
Monday.
The problem was that I mindlessly ate all the dry ramen.
All I had left to eat was canned food...!
Of course, I managed to fill my stomach somehow with canned food, but with no carbs in it, it didn't feel like I'd eaten at all.
“So who told you to go there? Seriously, you're impossible to stop.”
Aris was sulking, so she didn't even buy me dinner yesterday.
Of course, she seemed to have fully cheered up this morning, but my stomach was still empty.
Then I heard someone talking while looking at me.
“Hmph. So that's all a commoner amounts to, huh. No matter how talented, a class without economic freedom will only stay where it is.”
“Carter, weren't you a commoner too?”
An oblivious kid chimed in, but he didn't seem to care in the slightest.
“Hmph! I'm the legitimate heir to the Gwangyeong Merchant Guild. I'm on a whole different level from that.”
At this point, I couldn't ignore it anymore either.
I roughly brushed away the white hair that was blocking my view.
I'd left it because I was too lazy to cut it, and now it keeps getting in the way.
“...Who?”
“You don't know that person? That's the one who placed third in the dorm exam! If not for you, they'd have been runner-up! You stole that spot!”
“Wait, you don't need to emphasize third place that much...”
“Third place! Third place, I say! A genius who beat all but two of the dozens of students in this classroom! That's Robert Carter...”
A slightly more perceptive kid beside him covered his mouth.
Well, thanks to that, it did catch my attention.
...But third place?
“Huh?”
Then go bug first place.
I've heard of second place envying first, but never third place envying second.
Should I go find first place and have them deal with it?
I was too sleepy for that.
“I don't know who you are, so get lost, all of you...”
I stretched out my arms and buried my head in the desk.
Now, no matter what I heard, I wouldn't react...
“Hmph. If you work under me, I'll give you 50 silver a month.”
“Really!?”
I shouted cheerfully.
“...Huh? For real?”
The other person's flustered voice rang out, but I didn't care at all.